Why can’t the press hear the president’s prayers?

By Jeff Sharlet

No one can fault the press for not looking closely into the complex church/state issues surrounding the National Day of Prayer, a concept cemented into politics by Harry Truman as anti-communist boilerplate during the Cold War, and signed into law as the first Thursday in May by Ronald Reagan. On May 4 of this year, many of the nation’s most important news sources jumped right on top of the story— the Corvallis(OR)Gazette Times; the Rochester (NY) Democrat and Chronicle; and east Texas ABC affiliate KTRE, which presented the following as straight news “[a]s American troops fight for democracy and freedom around the globe and battle the war on terror, citizens of the United States are preparing to celebrate their freedom to gather, worship and pray.”

Continued in my new column, “Jesus Nation,” for High Plains Messenger, a young online magazine based out of Colorado Springs, a splendid small city that also happens to be the current Christian conservative mecca of America.